Welcome to the course.  This semester we will cover many of the mathematical tools that you will use for the duration of your science careers.  The level of mastery you attain will inform how much joy you find in physics and how easily you learn new things as you progress to higher levels of study.  Do lots of problems – many more than what are assigned – things that seem like tricks at first will slowly become standard problem solving techniques for you.  The beauty and elegance of physics and its applications is much easier to see when your view is not obstructed by mathematical frustration.

Book(s):

We will be using, as a primary text, Mary Boas’ Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences (3rd ed.).  It is a classic book and has been a standard for many years.  Her son, Harold, maintains a list of errata for the book on his website.  Once you secure a copy of the book, you should navigate to his page and annotate the corrections in your text.

At times I may also bring in information and examples from the texts below.  You don’t need to get copies of these, but it wouldn’t hurt either.  The first three are standard texts – you’ll almost definitely meet #1 in graduate school if you feel drawn that way.  #4 will help in areas where you feel like a few more examples would get you over the hump, and #5 is a little beauty to help you get a more intimate understanding of vector analysis (super for the transition to doing more advanced science and would be fantastic summer reading if you can’t squeeze it in over Spring Break).

1] Arfken and Weber – Mathematical Methods for Physicists (6th or newer)
2] Riley, Hobson, Bence – Mathematical Methods for Physics and Engineering (3rd or newer)
3] Kreyszig – Advanced Engineering Mathematics (7th or newer)
4] applicable Schaum’s Outlines (fantastic and cheap, btw)
5] Schey – Div, Grad, Curl, and All That (3rd or newer)

The class meeting time is Monday and Wednesday mornings from 9:30 to 10:50 AM in CS115.

Syllabus:

Perpetually in flux:
2015s_PHYS312_Syllabus (version 2015.04.12)

Term Project:

The intent of doing a project like this is to offload some stuff that doesn’t fit well into a lecture format, but offers skill development that most people will expect you to have at the next level, whether that means more school or a job.  Take copious notes as you work through Crawl.  You’re building the skills to conquer Walk and Run, and you’ll profit from writing up your work while you do it.  Please do start now, come get help during office hours if need be, and have some fun with it.

Turn in a hard copy before the end of the semester.  Write it up for an audience of sophomore scientists.  If you want to describe how well the technique approximates the 6-d sphere for increasing a parameter (# points, precision, radius, etc.), plots of the %difference vs parameter work well.  Be sure to number the figures and refer to them in your discussion.  The Run problem itself is not overwhelmingly difficult and the answer is all over the internet.  Just getting a decent answer is “C” work.  Strive to show that you understand the nuts and bolts of how this works.

Version 2015.03.04: Term Project

Homework:

All from Boas unless indicated otherwise.  Again, this represents the bare minimum.  Better is the enemy of good enough.  You may resubmit problems you don’t get totally correct on the first try.  I reserve the right to judge how much credit to assign for 2nd, 3rd, etc. submissions, and for unassigned problems.  The assigned problems are all worth 3 points, extras may vary based on difficulty.

One:

1.1: 1, 5, 11
1.2: 1, 2, 3
1.4: 1
1.5: 1, 3
1.6: 2, 9, 24
1.7: 1
1.13: work out equations 13.1-13.5 (this is actually problem 1.12:1)

Two:

1.13: 4, 5, 29 (use wolfram alpha or similar to check 29)
1.16: 19, 21
2.4: 11, 17
2.5: 6, 7, 36
2.8: 1
2.10: 3
2.11: 1, 2

Three:

2.11: 11
2.16: 1, 2, 7, 8
3.2: 9, 18
3.3: 6, 15 (just for #3, #11 not necessary)
3.4: 12
3.6: 2, 22

Four:

3.7: 28, 29
3.9: 3, 15(a, b)
3.10: 4 (a)

Five:

4.1: 2, 9, 16
4.2: 2
4.4: 6
4.5: 1, 6
4.9: 5, 11

Six:

4.12: 11
4.13: 18
5.2: 10, 11
5.3: 3, 6, 8
5.4: 14, 15, 16

Seven:

6.3: 2, 8
6.4: 4,6, 9
6.6: 1, 2, 3, 21
6.7: 5, 6, 13

Eight:

6.8: 2
6.9: 3
6.10: 2, 4, 11, 12
6.11: 2, 18
6.12: 14, 24

Nine:

7.2: 14
7.4: 2
7.5: 1, 6
7.8: 11, 12, 19
7.9: 5, 21
7.11: 4
7.12: 20

Ten (not for grade, just more focused practice):

7.13: 6, 7, 18, 23

Help:

Get help if you need it.  I’m in my office when the schedule above says so and probably if there’s nothing scheduled.  There are also free student tutors in the help room: 2015s_tutor_schedule.  Also, Nate Goff charges reasonable rates to help folks out.  His flyer is below.